tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post2382082021697916668..comments2015-03-30T13:06:47.634-04:00Comments on The DiaTribe: On DraftPaul Cousineauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03490622970961409253noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-28889024692436728122009-09-13T00:25:13.725-04:002009-09-13T00:25:13.725-04:00Jay - You are most likely completely right in all ...Jay - You are most likely completely right in all your logic, but alas, it does not make the pain any less cutting.Cadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12554323845469390779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-68847809498349792292009-09-12T14:21:18.627-04:002009-09-12T14:21:18.627-04:00Paul - great piece, your usual commitment not to t...Paul - great piece, your usual commitment not to take the usual assumptions for granted, willing to actually do the homework.<br /><br />Cade - I need to write about this at LGT at some point, but I don&#39;t think there&#39;s much understanding of what really went down with the Indians and Lincecum. More than half the teams wanted nothing to do with him, and not one team was willing to risk spending a first- or second-round pick on him.<br /><br />Ordinarily, he&#39;d have gone in the third round, but he made clear he&#39;d rather go back to college unless somebody wanted to give him a million-dollar bonus. That was, at the time, a #30 overall type of bonus, and Lincecum was ranked #72, where he usually would get more like $400,000.<br /><br />The Indians selected Lincecum with the #1261 overall pick, in the 42nd and final round, meaning that all 30 clubs had already passed on him at least 40 times each. Mirabelli said they offered him an &quot;aggressive&quot; bonus, which I take to mean something in the 600K to 800K range.<br /><br />Bottom line, if you can&#39;t sign a consensus third-rounder for second-round money, you have to let him go. Most consensus third-rounders end up with no career whatsoever, Lincecum was just the exception to the rule.Jayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17506129155693983095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-58748318641775401322009-09-12T13:32:59.351-04:002009-09-12T13:32:59.351-04:00Parker,
I think that you&#39;re right that this de...Parker,<br />I think that you&#39;re right that this deserves a harder look, but I&#39;m with Elia in wondering why some of these players can&#39;t get &quot;finished off&quot; or progress once they&#39;re at the MLB level.<br /><br />That, I think is the next question and one that I started working on as soon as I finished this thing up.Paul Cousineauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03490622970961409253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-21632145779328272352009-09-11T19:58:49.419-04:002009-09-11T19:58:49.419-04:00This discussion is precisely why I think Selig&#39...This discussion is precisely why I think Selig&#39;s comments to FOX Sports was ridiculous. It&#39;s not a matter of competitive balance? When a handful of teams are the only ones at play for good players when they reach free agency? When teams have to pass on amateurs because of the risk of not signing them when they cost too much? At what point do the Indians (Pirates, Royals, Reds, A&#39;s, et al) compete? And how do you call it competitive balance when the wealthy teams have so few losing seasons and the small market teams can&#39;t string more than one or two together?<br /><br />The other thought this article brings up is that if the Indians have actually been competitive via the draft (or at least not much worse than their AL Central breathren), based on your analysis, then where has this team really fallen down? Did they give the wrong players the long-term contracts? Has it been the draft but we have just been especially bad at drafting pitchers? Has it been this issue that we&#39;ve discussed here before: that players make it through the system but seem to regress at the major league level? Or is it something else? Bad-stinkin&#39; luck (a la Miller and Audrey)?Eliahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17515173441876386256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-89198165882707771682009-09-11T16:19:31.033-04:002009-09-11T16:19:31.033-04:00I think someone (and I will try to look) can proba...I think someone (and I will try to look) can probably add up the number of players drafted versus signed each year--that might give some indication about how serious a team is about building a good team through the draft versus sticking to the &quot;slot&quot; price no matter the cost to the team&#39;s future.<br /><br />Also, I wonder if something like the average date a draft class signed could be used. In the high-profile cases, it seems like the players sign at the last minute (probably because they want more than their &quot;slot&quot; allows). If a team gets all of the draftees signed quickly, maybe they are drafting player with lower upside who don&#39;t expect or negotiate for maximum dollars (they sign easily because they know they aren&#39;t worth a lot).<br /><br />Finally, could you compare the real draft positions of a team&#39;s players versus how those players were ranked before the draft? The rankings may be wrong in terms of eventual major league ability, but if a team were to consistently pick players very far away from a respected pre-draft projection (or group of projections) and those players consistenly &quot;fail&quot; more often than another team&#39;s players drafted closer to their pre-draft projection, could you conclude that the poor drafting teams are overthinking something or looking at the wrong factors or using some sort of self-limiting rule (like only drafting college players, never drafting high school pitchers, etc)? Basically, they are a bad drafting team instead of bad developers of talent?Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00494297962069628965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-87331040317977710982009-09-11T15:57:44.837-04:002009-09-11T15:57:44.837-04:00The &quot;paying over slot&quot; thing is somethin...The &quot;paying over slot&quot; thing is something that I have no idea how to measure or even find in terms of information.<br /><br />Lord knows that a guy like Rick Porcello dropped to that spot in the draft simply because of &quot;signability&quot; issues, but the flip side of that is what Parker mentions in the &quot;skipping&quot; of good players. The Tigers got him because of $, but how many teams passed over him for the exact reason? Probably 26 of them.<br /><br />I also think that Tyler&#39;s right in that the one big name (like an Atom Miller) that would placate a lot of the &quot;draft is the demise&quot; crowd is the thing that&#39;s lacking from the Indians&#39; list. Of course, if Miller&#39;s pulley system is intact and healthy, who knows where 2009 stands...much less 2008 with a healthy Miller in the rotation.Paul Cousineauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03490622970961409253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-35965260056028623832009-09-11T12:35:44.380-04:002009-09-11T12:35:44.380-04:00The &quot;Lincecum issue&quot; is an important one...The &quot;Lincecum issue&quot; is an important one.<br /><br />How many players have the Indians (versus the rest of the Central) drafted and then not signed (for whatever reason, but I&#39;ll guess the signing bonus is the main one)?<br /><br />A more theoretical (an probably impossible to answer) version: How many players have the Indians (versus the rest of the Central) passed on in the draft when it was clear they were skipping a good player because of &quot;signability&quot; issues?Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00494297962069628965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-25761623692831436632009-09-11T04:32:25.183-04:002009-09-11T04:32:25.183-04:00I kid you not, I get a stomachache thinking about ...I kid you not, I get a stomachache thinking about the Indians drafting Tim Lincecum and then not paying his signing bonus.Cadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12554323845469390779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11805401.post-3393574205520600262009-09-10T23:55:02.681-04:002009-09-10T23:55:02.681-04:00A thoughtful piece, PC, complete but for two eleme...A thoughtful piece, PC, complete but for two elements: signing bonuses and draft position. And not just the signing bonuses paid out to the &quot;successes&quot; you list, but the signing bonuses paid out to the wash-outs. And draft position -- hoo boy, there&#39;s an article in its own right. You&#39;d have to consider the entire draft, every year, to get a proper sense of it.<br /><br />Sounds like a lot of work, I know. There&#39;s a reason I&#39;m not doing it. But my blind guess is that, as a function of draft position and total funds expended, the Indians have been fairly average drafters, with a handful of high-profile flameouts. Basically, if it weren&#39;t for Adam Miller&#39;s crazy-ass pulley system, I don&#39;t think anybody would be complaining too much about the Indians&#39; drafting.Tylerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12645578572957938828noreply@blogger.com